“I don’t know. I want to find out.”
“It’s that illusion of hope again,” she murmured. “That’s all it is, Nick—and it means now that it’s all to do over again! The whole thing, from the beginning—and we were so near—the end!”
“I know,” he said miserably. “I know all that, but—” He paused as the insistent racket below was redoubled. “I’m going to answer that bell,” he ended.
He moved away from her, vanishing through the room’s single door. She watched his disappearance without moving, but no sooner had he passed from sight than a curious feeling of fear oppressed her. She cast off the numbness and languor, and darted after him into the darkness of the hall.
“Nick!” she called. Somewhere ahead a light flashed on; she saw the well of a staircase, and heard his footsteps descending. She followed in frantic haste, gaining the top step just as the pounding below ceased. She heard the click of the door, and paused suddenly at the sound of a familiar voice.
“Where’s Pat?” The words drifted up in low, rumbling, ominous tones.
“Dr. Carl!” she shrieked. She ran swiftly down the stairs to Nick’s side, where he stood facing the great figure of the Doctor. “Dr. Carl! How’d you find me?”
The newcomer gave her a long, narrow-eyed, speculative survey. “I spent nearly the whole night doing it,” he growled at last. “It took me hours to locate Mueller and get this address from him.” He stepped forward, taking the girl’s arm. “Come on!” he said gruffly, without a glance at Nick standing silently beside her. “I’m taking you home!”
She held back. “But why?”
“Why? Because I don’t like the company you keep. Is that reason enough?”
She still resisted his insistent tug. “Nick hasn’t done anything,” she said defiantly, with a side glance at the youth’s flushed, unhappy features.
“He hasn’t? Look at yourself, girl! Look at your clothes, and your forehead! What’s more, I saw enough from my window; I saw him bundle you into that car!” His eyes were flashing angrily, and his grip on her arm tightened, while his free hand clenched into an enormous fist.
“That wasn’t Nick!”
“No. It was your devil, I suppose!” said Horker sarcastically. “Anyway, Pat, you’re coming with me before I do violence to what remains of your devil!”
Nick spoke for the first time since the Doctor’s entrance. “Please do, Pat,” he said softly. “Please go with him.”
“I won’t!” she snapped. The sudden shifts of situation during the long hours of that terrible evening were irritating her. She had alternated so rapidly between horror and hope and despair that her frayed nerves had seized now at the same reality of anger. Her mind, so long overstrained, was now deliberately forgetting her swing from the pit of terror to the verge of death. “You come up like a hero to the rescue!” she taunted the doctor. “Hairbreadth Horker!”
“You little fool!” growled the Doctor. “A fine reception, after losing a night’s sleep! I’ll drag you home, if I have to!” He moved ponderously toward the door; she gave a violent wrench and freed her arm from his grasp.
“If you can, you mean!” she jeered. She looked at his exasperated face, and suddenly, with one of her abrupt changes of mood, she softened. “Dr. Carl, Honey,” she said in apologetic tones, “I’m sorry. You’re very sweet, and I’m really grateful, but I can’t leave Nick now.” Her eyes turned troubled. “Not now.”
“Why, Pat?” Mollified by the change in her mien, his voice rumbled in sympathetic notes.
“I can’t,” she repeated. “It’s—it’s getting worse.”
“Bah!”
“So it’s ‘Bah’!” she flared. “Well, if you’re so contemptuous of the thing, why don’t you cure it? What good did your psychoanalysis do? You don’t even know what it is!”
“What do you expect?” roared the Doctor. “Can I diagnose it by absent treatment? I haven’t had a chance to see the condition active yet!”
“All right!” said Pat, her strained nerves driving her to impatience. “You’re here and Nick’s here! Go on with your diagnosis; get it over with, and let’s see what you can do. You ought at least to be able to name the condition—the outstanding authority in the Middle West on neural and mental pathology!” Her tone was sardonic.
“Listen, Pat,” said Horker with exaggerated patience, in the manner of one addressing a stupid child, “I’ve explained before that I can’t get at the root of a mental aberration when the subject’s as unstrung as your young man here seems to be. Psychoanalysis just won’t work unless the subject is calm, composed, and not in a nervous state. Can you comprehend that?”
“Just dimly!” she snapped. “You ought to know another way—you, the outstanding authority—”
“Be still!” he interrupted gruffly. “Of course I know another way, if I wanted to drag all of us back to my office, where I have the equipment!—which I won’t do tonight,” he finished grimly.
“Then do it here.”
“I haven’t what I need.”
“There’s everything upstairs,” said Pat. “It’s all there, all Nick’s father’s equipment.”
“Not tonight! That’s final.”
The girl’s manner changed again. She turned troubled, imploring eyes on Horker. “Dr. Carl,” she said plaintively, “I can’t leave Nick now.” She seized the arm of the silent, dejected youth, who had been standing passively by. “I can’t leave him, really. I’d not be sure of seeing him again, ever. Please, Dr. Carl!”
“If these frenzies of yours,” rumbled Horker, “are so violent and malicious, you ought to be confined. Do you know that, young man?”
“Yes, sir,” mumbled Nick wretchedly.
“And I’ve thought of it,” continued the Doctor. “I’ve thought of it!”
“Please!” cried Pat imploringly. “Won’t you try, Dr. Carl?”
“The devil!” he growled. “All right, then.”
He followed the girl up the stairs, while Nick trailed disconsolately behind. She led him back into the chamber they had quitted, where a curious odor of peach pits seemed to scent the air. Horker sniffed suspiciously, then seized the remaining beaker, raising it cautiously to his nostrils.
“Damnation!” he exploded. “Prussic acid—or cyanide! What in—” He caught sight of Pat’s tragic eyes, and suddenly replaced the container. “Pat!” he groaned. “Pat, Honey!”
